DOVER — As fire departments worked to secure their communities locally in New Hampshire, a few traveled with the Massachusetts Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Task Force to New York City, to offer assistance there fighting Hurricane Sandy's wrath.

In an area of Queens along the Rockaway Peninsula, known informally as the Rockaways, a tiny New York neighborhood called Breezy Point was evacuated before the area was inundated with floodwaters and burned to the ground Monday night.

By Tuesday morning, charred foundations from 80 to 100 buildings were left in the sand of the beachfront community, and one Rochester Fire Department captain sent a text to a reporter, saying he had just arrived in an area nearby known as "Bayside."

Other firefighters arrived at 11 p.m. Monday in the Rockaways to find water chest-high in the streets, and used a boat to make rescues as flames engulfed home after home. The water and high winds whipping the coast from Sandy kept the blaze raging for several hours as firefighters hauled hoses while sloshing in ankle-high water.

McCullough, deployed with other men from various Seacoast and Tri-City departments as part of the Massachusetts USAR 1 unit, said it was 2 p.m. when he got to Queens.

Rochester Assistant Chief Mark Dupuis said McCullough was given orders to deploy to Massachusetts to help out there, but when reports came in of the devastation in New York, the crews were transferred.

“He showed me the conditions there last night, for sleeping, and it was not pretty,” Dupuis said. “They were staying in a correctional unit, with a leaky roof.”

Assistant Chief Steve Achilles with the Portsmouth Fire Department reported firefighter Shawn Wheeler had joined the group as well.

Dover Fire Chief Richard Driscoll said Lt. Chris Jacques from his department accompanied the some 80 men to New York City Sunday evening. He said the department was keeping Jacques in their thoughts as they hoped after his 7- to 14 day-long deployment, he would return safely.

“Any time that you know we can assist other areas of the country, that need help, you're happy to support the team and put personnel on it,” Driscoll said.

USAR is a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and involves the location, rescue, or extrication, and initial medical stabilization of victims trapped in confined spaces, according to the agency's website.

Driscoll said Jacques also assisted the team last year during Tropical Storm Irene in Vermont.

He said while the department worried for Jacques' safety, he believed in the USAR team's abilities.

“He was actually activated the other night while he was on duty so we really haven't spoken to him much,” Driscoll said. “We just hope that they're able to take care of the task at hand and that we get him here, we get him back working, and we get him back safely.”

Dupuis said while his department was concerned for McCullough, too, he knew his training would get him through the tumultuous days ahead.

“There's definitely a concern, I mean, especially when you see how bad things are,” Dupuis said. “But we also feel very confident with the training that he's received. It's a team effort all the time and no one is left alone … This is something that he has always wanted to do (but) I don't want to speak for him...”

Earlier in the day on Tuesday, reports came in of a few minor injuries to firefighters working along the Rockaways.

They worked to rescue several residents, climbing onto an awning to take trapped people from an upstairs apartment with a roof that was catching fire from a house next door. A row of about 25 businesses, including a shoe repair store, burned with apartments above them.

More than 190 firefighters in all were sent to the blaze, still putting out some pockets more than nine hours after it erupted.